Hike week

On February 23 my awesome class went to Lake Sutherland which is up by Julian. The weather was in the mid 70's and 80's the sky was really blue with really big clouds and the wind was blowing a cool breeze. For the first half of the trip my group went tracking for animal tracks (snake tracks, mice tracks, mount lion track and other animals). The best way to figure out which animals tracks they were we had to measure how big it was and then figure out how many toes it had. We were able to find 6 different animal tracks. After switching to a new task my group went hike and looking the different kinds of little animals that lived around the area such as snakes and lizards. We learned that water is not pumped into the lake it is all actually rain water. We learned that its a 36-inch pipeline and the lake is 8% full and gauge is 60.25. During the day first half of the day we learned about the study of herpetology. This is where you will find the snakes and lizards and other little animals. After that both groups met up again and they put us in groups of 3 and then we had to pick what kind of water test we would like top run. My group did nitrate our water was a very yellow murky color after putting the tablet in and we came to the conclusion of 10 ppm. This mean that this is ok water, not completely horrible because some nitrate is needed for survival when it come to aquatic life. Although it also means that the water probably is not safe for drinking.

On February 27 my whole 10th grade team went to San Dieguito Lagoon and they had us go to four different stations and at each station we would learn a little more able the animals in the lagoon. At the first station I my group and I had to match these stuffed animals next the these animal skulls and see if they were the right one, and then we had to draw a picture of a animal that lived in the San Diaguito area. At the second station we got to see what type of fish were in the lagoon and then the told us how big they can get up to. At the third station we were bird watching, we were trying to find all the different types of birds were around the area. At the fourth station we were doing different types of water testing like pH, nitrate, and chloride. After that we all come back together as a group and shared the data we collected from the different places we all went to during the week.

Class Results: The other classes collected data from two other places. In total we went Lake Hodges, Lake Sutherland, And Mount Volcan.

For Lake Hodges:- Ph :7, Neutral - Nitrate :5ppm , This is about the right amount of nitrate for aquatic life - D.O : 8.0 , This means there is to much algae bloom for fish -Temp: 34 c-Phosphate: 1ppm - Bacteria : Unknown - Turbidity : 0 JTU , turbidity is the measure of how the clear the water. Since it is 0 that means the water is very clear.

For Lake Sutherland: - Ph : 10 , very acidic this is because it is rain water, meaning any runoff from roads, dirt, oil can end up this water - Nitrate: 10 ppm a little above average but still fine aquatic life- D.O : 8ppm , This again means that the aquatic life in this areas may need more oxygen- Temp : 14 c- Phosphate: 1ppm - Bacteria : Positive-Turbidity : 100 JTU, very murky probably hard for sunlight to seep in and hard for aquatic life to live in